Health

Stress and anxiety are some of the most commonly used words today; we all have felt at least once in our lives what they mean and what effects they have. Are there any truly effective ways to overcome stress and anxiety?

We might be tempted to believe that most antibiotics are distributed to people through pharmacies and hospitals. The reality, however, is surprising.

The phenomenon of technoference (that is, the daily disturbance people experience due to the use of mobile phones) is becoming more and more prevalent, and researchers at the University of Technology in Queensland warn that as we become more dependent on these devices, we become more tired, more unproductive and unwell.

A recent study showed how we can fully restore our olfactory sense after a cold, during which nasal constriction prevents us from smelling even the most intense smells.

Numerous studies have shown the negative effects of sleep deprivation. However, the problem of excessive sleep is also something to be wary of. 

Our bodies reap the first benefits of giving up smoking almost immediately after we have ceased the habit. The scientifically proven changes that are visible within the next hours, days, months and even years after we quit smoking reinforce the fact that putting out that last cigarette is one of the best decisions you will ever make for the benefit of personal health.

Every January, economic and governmental elites gather in their hundreds in Davos, the exclusive ski resort in Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum holds its annual high-level meeting. This year, because of the pandemic, the in-person meeting had to be rescheduled. But the controversies surrounding the meeting's theme – The Great Reset – were not postponed.

Peering through the dust settling from the chaos of last year, we are trying to see into the unknown of the coming year, hoping for the best. Irrespective of what our hopes for 2020 were, our expectations for 2021 seem to centre on things going back to normal.

Sleep is perhaps the most important, complicated, and misunderstood physiological mechanism that keeps us alive.

Dr Zeno L. Charles-Marcel is an associate director in the Department of Health for the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

It was terrifying. They kept trying to comfort me by telling me they had the best surgeons. But they also said that I needed a new liver and that my body might reject it. – Christopher Herrera

In developed countries, where the public debate on tobacco consumption has been so widespread that even those who had no desire for it were educated on the negative effects of smoking, the prevalence of this toxic habit dropped so drastically that it caused trouble for cigarette manufacturers.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are specialists who are not surprised by this crisis, and believe that in the future we could be facing other pandemics if we fail to fix the mistakes that led to an increase of animal to human pathogen transmission.

Could it be true? Are we eating too much salt? Is too much salt dangerous or beneficial?

We do not know what 2020 would have looked like without a pandemic, but we already know that some losses could have been prevented. And, if the future lies in the spectrum of pandemics, as the WHO warns, we should learn all the lessons that can be learned from this long journey.